Michael J.T. Morrissey
Michael James Terence Morrissey (Michael Morrissey) (born 1942) is a New Zealand poet, short story writer, novelist, editor, feature article writer, book reviewer and columnist. Life Morrissey was educated at St. Peter's College, Auckland, and studied law and English literature at the University of Auckland. In 1967, he was the editor of Craccum, the University of Auckland student newspaper. In the 1970s, he began publishing short stories in Islands and Mate and later contributed stories and poems to literary journals such as Landfall, Morepork, Climate, Poetry New Zealand, Listener, Pilgrims, Rambling Jack, Printout, Brief, Magazine, Bravado, Comment, Echoes, Tango, Cornucopia, IKA,Takahe (New Zealand); Blackmail, Trout (New Zealand online), Ocarina, Literary Half Yearly (India); New Poetry, Poetry Australia, Mattoid, Inprint (Australia]; Gargoyle, Fiction International, Chelsea (USA); and''Percutio'' (France). In 1979, he was the inaugural writer in residence at the University of Canterbury. In 1985 he became the earliest New Zealand participant in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa from which he earned an honorary fellowship in writing. In 1986, he was the New Zealand delegate at the 48th World Congress of International PEN in New York. While there, Morrissey met many famous writers. Subsequently, he wrote obituaries based on personal encounters with Saul Bellow (May 7, 2005), Kurt Vonnegut (April 28, 2007) and Norman Mailer (December 1, 2007) -- all published in the New Zealand Listener. He has also written accounts of encounters with Samuel Beckett and Susan Sontag. A Fulbright Cultural Travel Award in 1981 enabled him to visit several leading American universities where he studied the teaching of creative writing. On his return to New Zealand, he founded the Waiheke Summer Writing School which ran from 1983 to 1991. He has taught creative writing through several Community Education Centres, and Continuing Education, University of Auckland, and was a tutor at the New Zealand Institute of Business Studies, Auckland between 2008 and 2010. In 2012, he was appointed writer in residence at the University of Waikato. His anthology The New Fiction (1985) was the earliest anthology of New Zealand postmodern fiction. He is the author of 11 volumes of poetry, 2 collections of short stories, a memoir, and 5 short novels, and he has edited 5 other books. His fiction has been translated into Mandarin, Japanese and Hungarian. Morrissey's short stories have been widely anthologised, including in All the Dangerous Animals Are in Zoos (1981), New Zealand Writing Since 1945 (1983), I Have Seen the Future (1986), Metro Fiction (1987), Antipodes New Writing (1987), Short Story International (1987), Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (1989), The Oxford Book of New Zealand Short Stories (1992), The Faber Book of Contemporary South Pacific Stories (1994), Rutherford's Dreams (1995), Essential New Zealand Short Stories (2002 and 2009). Morrissey's memoir, Taming the Tiger''http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1870365 (2011) documents his experiences with bipolar disorder, graphically describing 2 serious bipolar episodes and his forced hospitalization. These episodes and Morrissey's mania were the subject of a feature-length documentary, ''Daytime Tiger, directed by Costa Botes, which premiered at the New Zealand international film festival in 2011. An abridgement of Taming the Tiger in 5 episodes was read on National Radio on July 23–27, 2012. Since 2000, Michael Morrissey has contributed a monthly book review column to Investigate magazine (now renamed and reformatted as HIS/HERS). He has also reviewed books for Listener, Landfall, Islands, the Sunday Star-Times, the New Zealand Herald, The Press, Printout, and Quote Unquote. Writing Morrissey's 80-plus published short stories vary from neo-social realism to surreal and postmodern styles, and also deploy the introduction of famous personalities into the New Zealand landscape such as Jack Kerouac, Charles Fort, Andy Warhol and Franz Kafka. Recognition Awards *MacMillan Brown Prize (1977) *Writer's Bursary (1977) *Writer-in-Residence - University of Canterbury (1979) *Tom-Gallon Trust Award (1979) *Fulbright Cultural Travel Award (1981) *PEN Best First Book of Prose Award (1982) *Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition (1984) *Lilian Ida Smith Poetry Award (1986) *Writer-in-Residence - University of Waikato (2012) Morrissey was also awarded major project grants by Creative New Zealand in 1993 and 1998. In popular culture A short film by Costa Botes of a Morrissey story, Stalin's Sickle, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, in France, in 1988. Publications Poetry *''Make Love in All the Rooms.'' Dunedin: Caveman Press, 1978. ISBN 0-908562-75-6 *''Closer to the Bone''. Christchurch: Sword Press, 1981. ISBN 0-9597596-0-3 *''She's Not the Child Of Sylvia Platti''. Christchurch: Sword Press, 1981. ISBN 0-9597596-1-1 *''Dreams''. Christchurch: Sword Press, 1981. ISBN 0-9597596-3-8 *''Taking In the View''. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986. ISBN 1-86940-004-6 *''New Zealand, What Went Wrong?. Auckland: Van Guard Xpress, 1988. ISBN 0-908836-02-3 *''Dr Strangelove's Prescription. Auckland: Van Guard Xpress, 1988. ISBN 0-908836-03-1 *''A Case of Briefs''. Auckland: Van Guard Xpress, 1989. ISBN 0-908836-01-5 *''The American Hero Loses His Tie''. Auckland: Van Guard Xpress, 1989. ISBN 0-908836-04-X *''From the Swimming Pool Question: A collection of poems''. New Plymouth, NZ: Zenith, 2006. ISBN 1-877365-36-X *''Memory Gene Pool''. Lyttleton, NZ: Cold Hub Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-473-21916-1 *''Poems from Hotel Middlemore''. Lyttleton, NZ: Cold Hub Press, 2018. Novels *''Paradise to Come''. Auckland: Flamingo, 1997. ISBN 1-86950-252-3 (short novels Terra Incognita 1526 & Captain Nemo's Child) *''Heart of the Volcano''. Auckland: BookCaster Press, 2000. ISBN 0 473 06844 3 *''Tropic of Skorpeo''. Wellington: Steam Press, 2012. Short fiction *''The Fat Lady & The Astronomer: Some persons, persuasions, paranoias, and places you ought to encounter''. Christchurch: Sword Pres, 1981. ISBN-0-9597596-2-X *''Octavio's Last Invention''. Auckland: Brick Row, 1991. ISBN 0-908595-52-2 Non-fiction *''Taming the Tiger: A personal encounter with manic depression''. Auckland: Polygraphia, 2011. ISBN 978-1-877332-96-8 Edited *''The New Fiction'' Auckland: Lindon, 1985. ISBN 0-86470-016-4 *''The Globe Tapes: 42 New Zealand poets read their work'' (book & cassette; edited with Mike Johnson & Rosemary Menzies). Auckland: Hard Echo Press, 1985. ISBN 0-908715-15-3 *''New Zealand's Top 10''. Auckland: Moa Beckett, 1993. ISBN 1-86958-013-3 *''Flamingo Anthology of New Zealand Short Stories'' Auckland: Flamingo, 2000 ISBN 1-86950-335-X **revised & expanded, Auckland: HarperCollins, 2004. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Michael Morrissey 1942, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, june 18, 2019. Anthologized *''All The Dangerous Animals Are in Zoos'' (1981) *''New Zealand Writing Since 1945'' (1983) *''New Zealand Short Stories'' (4th Series) (1984) *''Listener Short Stories 3'' (1984) *''The New Fiction'' (1985) *''I Have Seen the Future'' (1986) *''Metro Fiction'' (1987) *''Antipodes New Writing'' (1987) *''Short Story International'' (1987) *''Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories'' (1989) *''Tabasco Sauce and Ice Cream'' (1990) *''The Oxford Book of New Zealand Short Stories'' (1992) *''Faber Book of Contemporary South Pacific Stories'' (1994) *''Rutherford's Dreams'' (1995) *''Beethoven's Ears'' (1995) *''100 NZ Short Stories'' (1997) *''Flamingo Anthology of New Zealand Short Stories'' (2000) *''Author's Choice'' (2001) *''Essential New Zealand Short Stories'' (2002) *''Flamingo Anthology of New Zealand Short Stories'' Extended edition (2004) *''Sunday 22'' (2006) *''Essential New Zealand Short Stories'' Second Edition (2009) *''46 by 44'' (2009) Stage plays *''Come Here Beethoven'' (1979). Performed at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch and the University of Otago, Dunedin. *''Exorcisms'' (1979). Performed at Theatre Corporate, Auckland. See also *List of New Zealand poets References An extended interview with Michael Morrissey can be found in Landfall 146.Olson, Suzanne (1983) Michael Morrissey interviewed, Landfall 146, Caxton, Christchurch There is an account of Morrissey's career in the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature.Robinson, Roger and Wattie, Nelson (1998) Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Oxford Poetry New Zealand 37 includes a critical study by John Horrocks of his work,Horrocks, John (2008) Truth telling: Michael Morrissey's poetry, Poetry NZ 37, Puriri Press and Brick Row, Auckland while Morrissey’s fiction is the subject of an extended essay by Lawrence Jones in his book Barbed Wire & Mirrors Essays on New Zealand Prose.Jones, Lawrence (1987) Michael Morrissey and Postmodernism: A Day at the Fiction Picnic in Barbed Wire & Mirrors Essays on New Zealand Prose University of Otago Press, ISBN 0-908569-39-4 An interesting perspective of the diversity of Morrissey's writing and his career can be found in Jack Ross' blog Imaginary Museum http://mairangibay.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/two-writers-2-michael-morrissey.html. Morrissey was interviewed by Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand about his memoir Taming the Tiger on 28 May 2011. Morrissey was also interviewed by Gerard Smith on The Beat Goes On on 16 May 2011 and on Jam Radio by Professor Michael Corballis on June 27, 2011. Books * Simpson, Peter, (1983) Recent Fiction and the Sargeson Tradition Journal of New Zealand Literature, No 1 * The Martyrdom of Michael Morrissey, Metro May 1990 * Michael Morrissey takes up Waikato residency http://www.waikato.ac.nz/news-events/media/2012/01michael-morrissey-takes-up-waikato-residency.shtml Reviews *''Make Love in All the Rooms'' Peter Simpson, Islands 24, 1978, *''Exorcisms'' Michael Neill, Islands 26, 1979 *''She's Not the Child of Sylvia Plath'' and Closer to the Bone Patrick Morrow, Landfall 139, 1981 *''The Fat Lady & the Astronomer'' Suzanne Olsson, Landfall 144, 1982 and Peter Goldsworthy, the CRNLE Reviews Journal *''Paradise to Come'' Iain Sharp, New Zealand Books 30, 1997 and Charles Ferrall, Landfall 195, 1998 *''From the Swimming Pool Question'' by Raewyn Alexander, Poetry New Zealand 34, 2007 Notes External links ;Prose *"Landing on the Moon ;Books *Michael Morrisey at the New Zealand Literature File ;About *Michael Morrissey at Acadamey of New Zealand Literature *Michael Morrissey at the New Zealand Poetry Society *Morissey, Michael at the New Zealand Book Council ;Etc. * The University of Waikato's New Zealand Short Stories Website http://www.waikato.ac.nz/library/resources/nzc/stories/index.shtml Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:New Zealand people of Irish descent Category:New Zealand literary critics Category:New Zealand male novelists Category:New Zealand poets Category:New Zealand short story writers Category:University of Auckland alumni Category:People educated at St Peter's College, Auckland Category:20th-century New Zealand novelists Category:New Zealand dramatists and playwrights